singing in church

On December 21, Sarah's Sunday school class (along with some of the older classes) sang two songs in the church services. You may remember last year's singing performance. The children sang loudly, enthusiastically, and off-pitch. Sarah and another girl got in a tussle over the microphone. And so on.

It wasn't quite as dramatic this year. A few weeks before the big day, I was given a CD with the two songs so that Sarah and I could practice at home. Sarah took her duty of learning the songs very seriously, and we listened and sang along with that CD so many times that I was ready to burn the CD! The first song, "Happy Birthday, Jesus," was pretty easy for Sarah to learn. The lyrics were simple and straightforward. Song number 2, titled "Glory to God in the Highest," was a bit more difficult. The words were hard for her to understand. Since she wasn't really certain what the lyrics of the song meant, she had a harder time learning them.

But as I said, for whatever reason, Sarah took to heart that she needed to learn these songs. And so we kept practicing. Finally, the day of the performance rolled around. The children did their normal good job, singing loudly and sincerely and not necessarily in key. Sarah was on the front row, looking very serious, but singing every line. The girl next to her (the same one she fought with over the microphone last year) stood swishing her skirt while she sang. But Sarah ignored all distractions, determined that she would do these song "right."

She did well enough that the head of Kids' Community commented that she was one of the few who really knew the words, so I guess all of our practice (and her solemn attitude) paid off. Nelson was able to capture video of the performance. If you would like for him to try to get a copy of the video to you, please leave a comment, or email either me or him.